TRIGGER / WARNING … is what?
"A statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc., alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material (often used to introduce a description of such content)." Huh! I've of course seen these before, but the term TRIGGER WARNING was new to me.
Today, Peter uses it to tell us that three themers "hide" different weapons with triggers. I liked RIFLE THROUGH best, since it's a pretty colorful phrase, and it doesn't directly get at the shooting type of RIFLE.
BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM does the same, but I've always thought of it as BAZOOKA GUM. I know, pedantic difference, plus the Wikipedia article is titled with BUBBLE in there. I'm clearly wrong here, as you can see in the pic.
RIDE SHOTGUN is the best of the themers, in terms of its snazziness, but the term originated from people in stage coaches riding up front with an actual shotgun. I suppose the term is *sort of* disguised, as these days, not many people ride in the passenger seat with a shotgun sticking out the window.
I hope!
Fortuitous how the three long themers interlocked, to form a backbone to the puzzle. I'm not sure I liked it as a solver, though. It's so much easier to read long entries from left to right, compared to top to bottom. I would have preferred to have BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM go in the middle row, with TRIGGER / WARNING flanking it, perhaps in rows 6 and 10.
I think Peter sometimes takes too many liberties with early-week puzzles, using tough vocab or esoteric names, or using a bit too much crossword glue to achieve a low word-count puzzle. I wasn't hot on MCI, ERG, TUM, DDR, but that's mostly passable for an early-weeker.
And I did like a lot of the ALLSPICE, ZOOTOPIA, FIREPLUG, WANGLE, ASYLUM fill. Certainly, the unusual layout helped make all those entries possible. Heck, with HESSIAN, HYDRATE, ARCHWAY, EPONYM, it would almost qualify for a decent themeless puzzle!
Overall, it's still a hard solve for a Tuesday, but not in a bad way.